I wanted to inquire about the situation regarding Platform B at Greenlawn Station. It is my understanding that the second track at Greenlawn is currently OOS. The ties are rotted and the rails are rusted after years of disuse. I have never in my life seen a train run through using Platform B and it appears to be a wasted opportunity. Northport lacks a second platform to make sense of any short term scheduling improvement however I believe Greenlawn may provide a more practical alternative. Would it make sense to rehabilitate the track and allow peak trains to take advantage of another passing siding improving the schedule at a sheer minimum? What are your thoughts on this matter?

Well just to the East of the Park Avenue grade crossing in Huntington, it shrinks down to one track and the third rail ends. At Greenlawn, the switches to the siding I think are manual, not computer programmed with the Western switch close to a grade crossing. Essentially, Platform B is used as a walkway to the Southern parking lot since the station has a pedestrian overpass. I think they also constructed Platform B for anticipation of future electrification East of Huntington or all the way to Port Jefferson to electrify the remainder of the branch. In the 1980's, the seven stations East of Huntington had high-level platforms constructed for anticipation but the project was scrapped in favor of relocating LILCO power poles at the time, expanding the new diesel fleet, and electrifying the central corridor of Suffolk County with the Ronkonkoma Branch from Hicksville to Ronkonkoma.

Phillip Eng has two electrification projects in mind right now: Electrifying the Central Branch to make it possible for electrics to take a detour in case of any work or suspension of the Babylon Branch from Lindenhurst Westward, or any work or suspension between Hicksville and Ronkonkoma. The second is electrifying the rest of the Port Jefferson Branch. That project would require electrifying the remaining 23 miles of track in Northern Suffolk County, and by any means necessary construction of a second track to be put into service from the Huntington linear track through at least Northport since there is ample room on the Southern side of the ROW. Currently the only stations that have one track are Northport and St. James. but Port Jefferson has 4 tracks with only the Northernmost track having a platform. Lets not forget that with a project of that magnitude the construction we saw for the Double Track from 2015-2018 and the Third Track currently is expansion of necessities for passengers, and improvements to infrastructure (elevators, rehabilitated platforms, parking garages at major hubs, updated signal interlockings etc.)

Starting to hear this from a lot of unconnected sources. With the current DM fleet effectively a failure and up for replacement anyway, it's time for it.

Of course, then you reduce diesel ops to a few short stubs. Rokonkoma and east, Babylon and east, Oyster Bay. Maybe just electrify the rest and dump diesel ops. I sure wouldn't cry. And with the driving tax in midtown coming in, there's going to be pressure to toss suburban commuters a bone, and Cuomo needs as much of lower NY as he can get, because he sure as hell can't get many votes upstate...

10.Huntington/Port Jefferson Branch Yard
LIRR is undertaking an initiative to evaluate feasibility of improving service and providing additional capacity along the Port Jefferson Branch in anticipation of ridership growth. This evaluation will consider construction of a new electric yard, double‐tracking from Huntington Station to Port Jefferson Station, and electrifying the tracks between Huntington Station and Port Jefferson Station.

As far as I know, this has been the only concrete stuff on this subject recently.

So not exactly that a double-tracking or any other option has been decided on, in my opinion a mixed approach might emerge.
Phase 1: medium-sized EMU yard at Northport/Kings Park, electrification and partial double-tracking to that point - extremely important for an effective ESA and Main Line Third Track service
Phase 2: expansion of electrification and partial double-tracking to Port Jefferson

Locations studied for a yard in the Northport/Kings Park area include
- the area between Pulaski Rd and Sunken Meadow State Pkwy
- former Kings Park Psychiatric Center
- a spot adjacent to St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center

I personally consider the first option the most viable with a yard located immediately west of Sunken Meadow State Pkwy. Note that the above scoping document was for a relatively large yard with tracks for 16 12-car EMU sets.

If the project goes ahead including electrification and partial double-tracking to Port Jefferson, it might be sufficient to have a smaller yard with 8 to 12 tracks mid-branch so another feasible option might be merging the school bus depot and a stripe of Kings Park High School yard into the new EMU yard.

How is the ridership these days between Huntington and Pt. Jefferson? It's been almost a decade since I rode that line all the way out. That would be nice if they can restore Platform B at Greenlawn. It would also be nice if they electrified the Pt. Jefferson Line all the way. It seems that if there was more service, especially direct trains running to NYP or NYG, then ridership would go up. Electric trains would probably do well running on the whole Pt. Jefferson Line.

Teutobergerwald wrote:Obviously nobody knows anything about the land between Greenlawn and Kings Park.

After Greenlawn going East here's what happens:

-It goes back to single track all the way to just East of Northport.
-Just past the grade crossing to the East of the Larkfield Road grade crossing, a linear storage track siding that can hold one full DM-30/DC-30 with C3 cars branches off to the South of the ROW before rejoining the main track known as DUKE Interlocking.
-Past DUKE, it goes back to single track just to the West of Kings Park, and is double-tracked from just West of a grade crossing through Kings Park and past the Eastern grade crossing before going back to single track.

The only stations that have one platform are Port Jefferson, St. James, and Northport. The other four stations, consist of two platforms and two tracks (although Greenlawn's Platform B isn't being used). Port Jefferson has four tracks but the Southern 3 tracks do not see service.